1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a printing method using Windows Color System, and in particular, it relates to such a printing method with a more efficient way of calculating color transforms.
2. Description of Related Art
In contrast to a traditional ICC (International Color Consortium) color management scheme, WCS (Windows Color System) used in Windows Vista™ and Windows7 operating systems employs measurement-based profiles and smart CMM (Color Management Modules). In WCS, profiles, which are composed of measurement data and parameters, are made off-line (i.e. not during the printing process), while color transform and color conversion (or content color translation) are performed dynamically during the printing process. The color transform step creates a color transform that applications can use to perform color management. The color conversion step translates an array of colors from the source color space of a source file to the destination color space as defined by the color transform.
The WCS scheme provides measurement-based profiles, with the ability to edit profiles and the improvements in profile interoperability. However, it has potential performance issues, especially when using highly complicated algorithms in color transform and content color translation. For example, when some third party proprietary algorithms are applied, the calculation could take about 10 minutes in some extreme cases.